was a single serious and important, albeit only partial, exception to
this general rule of charity. After the outbreak of the Revolution, the
Kentuckians, in common with other backwoodsmen, grew to thoroughly
dislike one religious body which they already distrusted; this was the
Church of England, the Episcopal Church. They long regarded it as merely
the persecuting ecclesiastical arm of the British Government. Such of
them as had been brought up in any faith at all had for the most part
originally professed some form of Calvinism; they had very probably
learnt their letters from a primer which in one of its rude cuts
represented John Rogers at the stake, surrounded by his wife and seven
children, and in their after lives they were more familiar with the
"Pilgrim's Progress" than with any other book save the Bible; so that it
was natural for them to distrust the successors of those who had
persecuted Rogers and Bunyan.[3] Still, the border communities were, as
times then went very tolerant in religious matters; and of course most
of the men had no chance to display, or indeed to feel, sectarianism of
any kind, for they had no issue to join, and rarely a church about which
to rally.

By the time Kentucky was settled the Baptists had begun to make headway
on the frontier, at the expense of the Presbyterians. The rough
democracy of the border welcomed a sect which was itself essentially
democratic. To many of the backwoodsmen's prejudices, notably their
sullen and narrow hostility towards all rank, whether or not based on
merit and learning, the Baptists' creed appealed strongly. Where their
preachers obtained foothold, it was made a matter of reproach to the
Presbyterian clergymen that they had been educated in early life for the
ministry as for a profession. The love of liberty, and the defiant
assertion of equality, so universal in the backwoods, and so excellent
in themselves, sometimes took very warped and twisted forms, notably
when they betrayed the backwoodsmen into the belief that the true
democratic spirit forbade any exclusive and special training for the
professions that produce soldiers, statesmen, or ministers.

The fact that the Baptist preachers were men exactly similar to their
fellows in all their habits of life, not only gave them a good standing
at once, but likewise enabled them very early to visit the farthest
settlements, travelling precisely like other backwoodsmen; and once
there, each preacher,